Fishing Without Bait
by Rie Mizuki
Summary: When Tir teachs Riou about fishing and human's existence...


I don't own Suikoden. This fanfic just for fun!

_Fishing Without Bait_

It was a peaceful day for entire of Dunan castle. Everybody seemed took a day off and relaxing themselves by slacking off from errands. But, no one complained it at all. They were so tired from the endless battle that occurred this week in a row. Full forces were deployed to face both Matilda and Highland in the same time. Not only they must lose so many brave soldiers at hands but, they also ran out of supply. It took some time for recovery and Shu suggested that they needed to rest from all activity before stepped again on the land of massacre. It'll do for them, at least,

It'll do for Riou.

The sea breeze did entertaining some people with its tranquility and Riou was one of them. He moved his fishing rod lazily tried to gather the fish interest at his bait. Yam Koo watched him as he was so serious to catch some fish. But, he knew that the boy didn't interest to do something as catching fish because he asked a fishing rod without bait. It was such a behavior that flustered him, although he already knew what the reason is. No, everybody in this castle already knew what it is.

It was a tragedy…which overwhelmed the castle with grief.

The fishhook floated upside down on the peaceful water. The serenity which played in the breeze of wind did do its role to calm down the place until it became morose. Riou too looked so quiet. No one could guess that he lost in a deep thought or just thinking nothing. Whatever the answer is, there was one thing that inevitable.

The sorrow from his eyes already enough to describe the pain he endured and he must bury it deep down in his heart without yelling how hurt it was.

In few minutes, the string of his fishing rod was pulled softly by something from the water. Riou put some attention to it, but he let go just like that as if there will be another chance he could catch the thing beneath it. Yam Koo observing his attitude for some time and sighed when he knew it can't be helped. He didn't have any precise words to give in this kind of situation because he knew that Riou already lost in his mind and his feeling. Then, the sound of someone stepping near to them made him turned his head. His eyebrows rose when he saw who was coming, but no words came to stop him when he unhesitatingly came reach the young boy and pulled the fishing pole in a proper manner of teaching.

"You must grab it steadily and swinging it to and fro slowly. Let the fish think your fishhook had bait, so they eventually came to it and mistakenly eat it," said Tir without concerning and showed how it done.

Riou didn't show any surprise from his face as Tir came by him suddenly. He just liked a toy who looking at the dead water and floating fishhook without took some care for it. After teaching that small stuff thing as greeting, Tir moved beside him and sat by looking the same scenery with him. Yam Koo knew that the green bandana boy took the rest, so he went leaving them alone.

A long silent occurred and it made both of them rigid one each other. Although they seemed to enjoy the composure together, but, in their minds they were separated with a long distance to link a pleasant talk to start with.

"How do you know my fishing rod had no bait?"

Tir turned around his head. He had been waiting a preface like this and Riou opened it with a flustered question to answer.

"You don't have a bucket here. No one come to fishing without a bucket at hand. If they were, then they wouldn't have a place to store their capture, would they?"

Hearing that, Riou sighed. "It seemed you knew so many things about capturing fish."

Tir recognized that tone. The boy didn't mean about 'capturing fish' in a denotation form, but in connotation. And such tone had a big impact that quite enough to press his heart too.

"That's what a leader must do. He needed to have a comprehended analyze to realize such trickery."

"But, I was wondering about the point people doing fishing. Why they bait them with fishhook and trapped them in a rueful way? Why don't they just swim to capture it by themselves? They could catch so many fish if they do it like that."

"Well, some fish are not stupid. Like salmon, it has a great force to knock out somebody. Only a skillful fisherman could bait that fish and capture it with his fishing rod. It's an efficient way to catch a fish like that."

"In the end, they hurt another fish too with his bait, right? I really couldn't understand why you are so fond of this fishing thing."

That sentence was a final result for their arguing. It was obvious that Riou still can't forget how loath fully himself to be fallen at such trick by Gorudo. By hearing how flat his tone was when he said all those things, it made everything got worse. Tir took a deep breath and sighed.

"Riou, drop it off. It is not your fault that she died."

The critical words which Tir had avoided about seemed didn't affect him as it should be. Riou was so calm as if nothing had happened and looking at the sky to find some aspiration that could come from those words.

But, the words just flew away without any following supported sentence to come by. It just sound as light words to be taken yet both of them knew that this is hard to be understood.

"Does anybody have said that to you?" asked Tir looking at the harbored ship from the distance.

"Yeah. All of them does," answer Riou coldly. "_Leave it, Riou. You couldn't do anything for it._ Or, _You must go on for the one who live. People who already dead won't help you with anything._" He sighed again. "It's easy just to say."

Tir looked at him concernedly. The way he looked at him was just the same as he looked at himself at the mirror, the suffered boy who trapped in midst of the cruelty war. And he couldn't help him except lessening his pain by sitting beside him and hearing what he wanted to say.

"Do you know? Both of me and Nanami were from a small peaceful town called Kyaro. We are orphans unrelated by blood which Grandpa Genkaku took us in. I don't know who is older from both of us, me or her. So, to make it clear we settle it with Janken. I was so lame with stuff like that so, she won easily. She became my big sister and always running help me and Jowy when we were bullied by the other boys," suddenly Riou laughed. "It was so funny if I remember how energetic she was and how timid I was that time. Well, she never changed at all these years anyway."

"But, I've changed and I realized that earnestly that my timid character has blown away with war stuff, changed by the forced grown up me till this very day. I even couldn't count how many people blood had stained my hand. I don't have time to bother with such a thing. The only thing I just cared is to protect what is dear to me and I don't even think what course of action that proper to fulfill that kind of desire. The more war wants me, the more I lost in those despair to holding people that are close to me. I even hate the Rune on my right hand because its stupid forecast which haunted me everyday. I fear it although I knew that the Rune really intended to help me to relieve from another death. I really fear with the reality."

"Well, it seemed that I must admit my lost this time. If I'm forced her to stay at the castle—"

"Don't be, Riou," warned Tir sharply. "You mustn't regret with what you had done."

"So, what must I regret for? My bad eyesight that didn't recognize Gorudo's archer? Or my slow body who cannot jump to protect her first?"

Tir froze in his place when he shot with that kind of answer. For the first time, Riou looking at him, not with a deep sorrow eyes he had, but with an utter desperation which boiled into the surface. It was a pathetic to see a pure child who knew not about despair must be disgraced by ripped his sense in a blaze of shock.

The fishhook tucked in and out into the water, but nothing seemed attached with that lure. It was just a minute that the tense glowering each other occurred but the effects need a much time to be taken. It gave them a long pause which they used it to think deeper about each other opinion.

"I knew how that feeling was," murmured Tir. "And I knew how it feels to blame myself for that."

Riou was still gazing at the sparkling water vacantly. "Then?"

"You know it. But, then I realized that it was wrong to do something stupid like that."

"…Stupid?"

"Yeah," the bandana boy laid himself on the wooden dock and smiled thinly to the blue sky upon them. "My father said that I must live my life to the fullest, although it was me who killed him. My best friend, Ted, was talking the same way to. It was difficult to understand what they say that time. People always easy to say but, they never knew how much hardship to loose those pains. But, as the time goes on, I realized something."

It drove Riou curiousness and Tir fondly continued it without problem.

"Why I'm still in a sucks place called 'atonement' in myself? Such a foolish doing to spend all of my time just to whimper and whine about the dead. They're already release from their pain and now it is me and my surroundings that need the help. It's my life and those suffering lives that must be mourned about. I can't stop myself in the death of someone that dear for me. I must keep living for the sake of the others that shared the same suffering."

"Now, tell me, Riou," he spotted his eyes through his eyes completely. "In order to achieve the peace you wanted, you already know the risk of losing many things in your journey. But, did you really wanted to stop your step in the middle way just like this? Is this what Nanami wished from you? Mourning her dead all the time?"

Riou didn't answer. He's too amazed with that kind of words. It wasn't for pitying him or to confront him with an offensive argument about the situation he was in now. Just a simple fact did knock his mind's door and his solid heart.

"I knew it is hard to take those pains with you until the very end. But, it is not you duty to hold those cries, the yelling and the frustration that lies deep in your heart. You had a time for release that, Riou. Don't' think by buried it you won't make other people worried about you. Even if you don't care about your surroundings about you, you should know that those pains will actually kill you pieces by pieces and the others as well."

They looking at the calm water once more and felt the desolate ambience had become a friendlier this time. Tir stood up and took the fishing rod from Riou hands. The boy let him borrowed the rod and watching him nailing a fish in a quick movement. He looping up the nail and in a minute he got a minnow sea bream hooked on the fishing pole.

"When you're fishing, if you catch a fish that still to little and brittle, you must throw it back into the water safely. That's the nature of fishing after all," said Tir while release the little sea bream carefully and let it go to its habitat. "It's not very cruel as you think. Fishing does give you how to value a life anyway."

He gave back the rod to Riou, then messing his hair softly before he went to Yam Koo and borrowed another fishing pole. Silently, tears were falling from the boy's cheek. Riou wiped it although it didn't stop to shed tears. Those agony feelings that overwhelmed him did open his eyes about how worth his sister had sacrificed for him. The sense that never passed on his mind that he actually needed not to think who to put the blame for, but who she saved for. He understood now why she jumped in although his sister knew exactly how strong he is to encounter such arrows.

It's really valuable for the chance he still could live and he knew that his duty wasn't over yet. He still have Jowy and the other else situation that needed to be fixed.

The tears still fell mindlessly from his teary eyes. The hurt still give him tight press on his heart but yet it chuckled him too when he realized that he can cry now but he couldn't when he heard Nanami was dead. For the first time, he showed his weakness, not anybody but just to himself.

That he is no hero at all. Just a human who was so brittle to be shattered.

Sometime, only tears could be the best way to relieve some pains…

Tomorrow later, he and Tir sat down in the same spot and at the same time in the morning.

"Hey, Tir. It seemed that fishing isn't so bad anyway. Could I get a real sea bream this time?"

"Depend on how your bait is."

"But, I don't have any bait. Yam Koo didn't give me one."

"Then, how about you dive away and catch it by your hands?"

"No, I wouldn't do that because it will ruin the pleasure. Beside we won't know what kind of fish we got when we fishing."

"?"

"I had prepared myself for the excitement it will give me. But, no matter what it is, I'll get my sea bream."

"…Don't worry. You'll get it eventually."

_Fin_

...

Hello, maybe some of you didn't understand my abstract short story. But, let me explain it to you so you won't confuse to understand this story. It was telling about how Riou in his lowest state after losing Nanami. It was a big shock for him so he couldn't have thought any proper way to express the pain that lurked in his heart. Wandering aimlessly, he did some fishing just to find some tranquility he needs. Coincidentally Tir found him and talk some stuff about fishing. Riou said that fishing were just the same tricky activities like what Gorudo had done to his sister. Pathetic, isn't it? But, it helps Tir to understand his situation was and show him that it wasn't the point of fishing at all. In the end, they do some fishing together and Riou got better. The sea bream here was meant about the wish and desire that must be fulfilled. And in what Tir had meant in his talk was there will always a time to sacrifice something that dear from us to achieve something better. Riou said that he'll got his sea bream and it means that he'll achieve his wish by himself no matter what and he'll protect them with all of his might.

So, how is it? This is my first fanfic, so **REVIEW PLEASE**. I am earnestly sorry if there were so many grammatical errors in my story. Thanks for reading ;-D


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